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Under the cut, randomly firing synapses in response to new CSI, Heroes, Studio 60, and Supernatural.
CSI, oh, CSI. So it's going to be like this, is it? You know, I'm all for skewing plotlines away from the procedural format and more toward the reactions of the characters; the reason I watch CSI at all is that the characters are eccentric and interesting in a way that livens up the done-to-death murder mystery of the week format. However, CSI? Don't offer me filet mignon, and then cut it for me with a chainsaw. Is there any good reason that the first two episodes had to contain THREE SEPARATE (though admittedly, connected) traumas for Catherine? What's the matter, there wasn't time to bury her alive while you're at it? I'm afraid the watchword for this season is going to be More Is More, and I've been down this road before (I'm looking at YOU, Oz). All that's going to happen is that I'm going to get shock-fatigue, and nothing will be shocking. It'll all just be Another Dreadful Week In Las Vegas (TM). That's been a lingering issue for CSI for a while now (Nick-in-a-box, Nazis experiment on Heather's daughter), but usually the acting, and the fact that it only really goes over the top every once in a while, has salvaged it. However, let me just say, I have a bad feeling about this season.
I have a good feeling about Heroes, though, almost in spite of the premiere, which had a bit of a slow hand at pacing, raising the spectre of a Lost-type show where every goddamn episode is hints and whispers and meaningful characterization moments and nothing fucking happens. However, the trailers for next week seem to imply that we're going to get into this averting-the-apocalypse plotline, so hopefully these writers know how to spell "narrative." It's visually stunning, and although it's a bit on the ponderous and weighty side, there's some humor and some creeping horror (OMFG, what *is* PornMom's superpower? Holy shit! Is "split-personality chainsaw massacre" technically a superpower at all?) that means it might not run into the ground on its own Very Serious Drama-ness. And really, come on, am I ever *not* going to watch a show about regular people sprouting superpowers? I am never not going to watch that show. I'm pretty much all about that show. Maybe it was too much Greatest American Hero at a formative age?
Supernatural continues to basically be Supernatural, with the myth-arc being entirely about Sam while Dean gets all the good acting moments. Although in fairness, I did think Sam was more fun to watch in the premiere than he normally is -- all his best moments come along when he gets to be combative with John, so it'll be interesting to see how John's death affects that trend. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but what a spectacular "fuck you" John had for Sam at the end of his life -- all this stuff to Dean about their relationship and what he regrets as a father and yadda yadda, and Sam gets, "Get your old man a cup of coffee, kid," and then the fun of discovering his father's dead body. Talk about getting the last word in the argument, man. Dean's core-dump on John while he was disembodied was interesting, too; I can't decide if I think he's still only able to be angry at times when he can also suppress or deny it (no witnesses), or if I think this situation itself subverted Dean's expectations of what the Winchesters' shared definition of "family" is in ways that broke through that dam and made him actually willing to be angry. After all, at the end of last season, Dean (Mr. "Hunting Evil! Saving People!") let a Major, Scary Evil loose on the world specifically because he couldn't bear his father's death (well, Sam did, but I always felt he was very much swayed by the begging Dean did for John's life), so finding out that for his father, Dean's own death might conceivably be just the price of doing business -- I could see that really being the kind of betrayal that would break Dean's back in spite of his loyalty. Hard to say, though.
And then there's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Oh, Aaron.
Look, I'm down with the fact that Aaron's something of a one-trick pony; I've always felt that if you do something well, you should do it until people are sick of seeing it, and so far -- given the enormous critical ass-kissing Studio 60 has received -- people seem to like Aaron's pony. And I always had the sense that part of what he wanted to do was rewrite Sports Night for the audience he didn't have back then, and I'm sympathetic to that, too, because Sports Night *did* deserve the attention that Aaron can now command for something like Studio 60.
Ah, but does Studio 60 deserve it? I'm not sure yet. I have this dire feeling that it may be both flawed at the core and further saddled with heretofore-unseen levels of Aaron's crazy on full-out, peacock-feathered display. Most creative geniuses are a bit batshit, but Aaron really goes balls-out about it in a way that most people try to avoid. For this very reason.
The flaw at the core, sadly, may be with the leads. I love Brad and I love Matt (Matthew Perry, btw, has impressed the shit out of me with this role so far), and yes, they're old-school Heterosexual Life Partners in a highly adorable way, but part of what I *like* about Sorkin characters, what he writes very well, is that no matter how smart or talented his leads are, they're basically underdogs, dorks, and just generally square pegs in life's round holes -- as Isaac Jaffee once said, not fitting in is how you get fired from a normal job, but it's how you wind up working for Sports Night, and as much as the West Wing folks were brilliant in their own right, the very fact that their job was leading the free world meant they would *always* be outgunned and any lack of humility would be shortly followed by something large falling on their heads. I think we're *supposed* to read Danny and Matt as coming in against enormous odds trying to save the failing show yadda yadda, but the show is at *such pains* to remind us every two seconds that these guys are bona fide geniuses and the people who've been mishandling Studio 60 until now are cowards, hacks, and pinheads, that I actually don't *want* to like them. Okay, we get it, you're wunderkinds. Now STFU about it.
Also, they're kind of assholes. There's a level at which that's entertaining, but...this is not that level, for me. They both come in with this whole alpha-male Hollywood "bring your A game or we'll ruin you and dump you for worthless dead weight" toward both the cast and the writers, and I'm quite sure that's a realistic assesment of how things often get done in the industry, but I don't like alpha males and there's a reason why, in spite of the fact that serial television is basically my life, my goals have never included working in the industry. If I'd been in that writer's meeting, I'd have been like, "Fuck you and your tie, Mary Sue Sorkin," and that would've been my career right there.
And speaking of Sorkin, Jesus God, can we get through an episode without a screed on why television needs your brilliance, you megalomaniacal cokehead? And see, your bullshit faux-camaradarie with "the people who make television are not smarter than the people who watch it" is TOTALLY FUCKING TRANSPARENT, YOU DIPSHIT, when the entire plot of your second episode is that Jordan is a big damn hero for refusing to let "amateurs" (a.k.a. "the audience") tell her what to put on tv. Of course you think you're smarter than we are, especially if we're FAT CHICKS ON THE INTERNET, OMG, YOU *DICK,* (a.k.a. "the lowest and most ignorable subset of the inappropriately opinionated 'audience'"). Okay, we get it, you're a good writer. You're also a mean son of a bitch who bitterly resents the necessary evil of having fans at all. Oh, if only you could cut to the chase and make your tv shows just for the enlightened reviewers at the Times, like it used to be done in Days of Yore. But now even the Times quotes us! It's anarchy! We know, Aaron. The people who make television are not smarter than the people who entirely love and admire the way they make television; the rest of us are bottom-feeding losers who don't deserve your brilliance. Now STFU about it.
So it's a technically competent show -- more than competent, if you're willing, as I mostly am, to overlook the fact that it's basically a clone of Sports Night redone in the visual and narrative style of The West Wing (seriously, did they have to use the same titles font? it's freaky). It remains to be seen it has anything but defensiveness and cynicism at the heart of it, IMO, and that's going to be the defining factor in whether or not I find it watchable in the long run.
Soon, I will watch the Jericho that I have recorded, and there will be NEW VERONICA MARS, WOOT! Don't touch that dial!
CSI, oh, CSI. So it's going to be like this, is it? You know, I'm all for skewing plotlines away from the procedural format and more toward the reactions of the characters; the reason I watch CSI at all is that the characters are eccentric and interesting in a way that livens up the done-to-death murder mystery of the week format. However, CSI? Don't offer me filet mignon, and then cut it for me with a chainsaw. Is there any good reason that the first two episodes had to contain THREE SEPARATE (though admittedly, connected) traumas for Catherine? What's the matter, there wasn't time to bury her alive while you're at it? I'm afraid the watchword for this season is going to be More Is More, and I've been down this road before (I'm looking at YOU, Oz). All that's going to happen is that I'm going to get shock-fatigue, and nothing will be shocking. It'll all just be Another Dreadful Week In Las Vegas (TM). That's been a lingering issue for CSI for a while now (Nick-in-a-box, Nazis experiment on Heather's daughter), but usually the acting, and the fact that it only really goes over the top every once in a while, has salvaged it. However, let me just say, I have a bad feeling about this season.
I have a good feeling about Heroes, though, almost in spite of the premiere, which had a bit of a slow hand at pacing, raising the spectre of a Lost-type show where every goddamn episode is hints and whispers and meaningful characterization moments and nothing fucking happens. However, the trailers for next week seem to imply that we're going to get into this averting-the-apocalypse plotline, so hopefully these writers know how to spell "narrative." It's visually stunning, and although it's a bit on the ponderous and weighty side, there's some humor and some creeping horror (OMFG, what *is* PornMom's superpower? Holy shit! Is "split-personality chainsaw massacre" technically a superpower at all?) that means it might not run into the ground on its own Very Serious Drama-ness. And really, come on, am I ever *not* going to watch a show about regular people sprouting superpowers? I am never not going to watch that show. I'm pretty much all about that show. Maybe it was too much Greatest American Hero at a formative age?
Supernatural continues to basically be Supernatural, with the myth-arc being entirely about Sam while Dean gets all the good acting moments. Although in fairness, I did think Sam was more fun to watch in the premiere than he normally is -- all his best moments come along when he gets to be combative with John, so it'll be interesting to see how John's death affects that trend. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but what a spectacular "fuck you" John had for Sam at the end of his life -- all this stuff to Dean about their relationship and what he regrets as a father and yadda yadda, and Sam gets, "Get your old man a cup of coffee, kid," and then the fun of discovering his father's dead body. Talk about getting the last word in the argument, man. Dean's core-dump on John while he was disembodied was interesting, too; I can't decide if I think he's still only able to be angry at times when he can also suppress or deny it (no witnesses), or if I think this situation itself subverted Dean's expectations of what the Winchesters' shared definition of "family" is in ways that broke through that dam and made him actually willing to be angry. After all, at the end of last season, Dean (Mr. "Hunting Evil! Saving People!") let a Major, Scary Evil loose on the world specifically because he couldn't bear his father's death (well, Sam did, but I always felt he was very much swayed by the begging Dean did for John's life), so finding out that for his father, Dean's own death might conceivably be just the price of doing business -- I could see that really being the kind of betrayal that would break Dean's back in spite of his loyalty. Hard to say, though.
And then there's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Oh, Aaron.
Look, I'm down with the fact that Aaron's something of a one-trick pony; I've always felt that if you do something well, you should do it until people are sick of seeing it, and so far -- given the enormous critical ass-kissing Studio 60 has received -- people seem to like Aaron's pony. And I always had the sense that part of what he wanted to do was rewrite Sports Night for the audience he didn't have back then, and I'm sympathetic to that, too, because Sports Night *did* deserve the attention that Aaron can now command for something like Studio 60.
Ah, but does Studio 60 deserve it? I'm not sure yet. I have this dire feeling that it may be both flawed at the core and further saddled with heretofore-unseen levels of Aaron's crazy on full-out, peacock-feathered display. Most creative geniuses are a bit batshit, but Aaron really goes balls-out about it in a way that most people try to avoid. For this very reason.
The flaw at the core, sadly, may be with the leads. I love Brad and I love Matt (Matthew Perry, btw, has impressed the shit out of me with this role so far), and yes, they're old-school Heterosexual Life Partners in a highly adorable way, but part of what I *like* about Sorkin characters, what he writes very well, is that no matter how smart or talented his leads are, they're basically underdogs, dorks, and just generally square pegs in life's round holes -- as Isaac Jaffee once said, not fitting in is how you get fired from a normal job, but it's how you wind up working for Sports Night, and as much as the West Wing folks were brilliant in their own right, the very fact that their job was leading the free world meant they would *always* be outgunned and any lack of humility would be shortly followed by something large falling on their heads. I think we're *supposed* to read Danny and Matt as coming in against enormous odds trying to save the failing show yadda yadda, but the show is at *such pains* to remind us every two seconds that these guys are bona fide geniuses and the people who've been mishandling Studio 60 until now are cowards, hacks, and pinheads, that I actually don't *want* to like them. Okay, we get it, you're wunderkinds. Now STFU about it.
Also, they're kind of assholes. There's a level at which that's entertaining, but...this is not that level, for me. They both come in with this whole alpha-male Hollywood "bring your A game or we'll ruin you and dump you for worthless dead weight" toward both the cast and the writers, and I'm quite sure that's a realistic assesment of how things often get done in the industry, but I don't like alpha males and there's a reason why, in spite of the fact that serial television is basically my life, my goals have never included working in the industry. If I'd been in that writer's meeting, I'd have been like, "Fuck you and your tie, Mary Sue Sorkin," and that would've been my career right there.
And speaking of Sorkin, Jesus God, can we get through an episode without a screed on why television needs your brilliance, you megalomaniacal cokehead? And see, your bullshit faux-camaradarie with "the people who make television are not smarter than the people who watch it" is TOTALLY FUCKING TRANSPARENT, YOU DIPSHIT, when the entire plot of your second episode is that Jordan is a big damn hero for refusing to let "amateurs" (a.k.a. "the audience") tell her what to put on tv. Of course you think you're smarter than we are, especially if we're FAT CHICKS ON THE INTERNET, OMG, YOU *DICK,* (a.k.a. "the lowest and most ignorable subset of the inappropriately opinionated 'audience'"). Okay, we get it, you're a good writer. You're also a mean son of a bitch who bitterly resents the necessary evil of having fans at all. Oh, if only you could cut to the chase and make your tv shows just for the enlightened reviewers at the Times, like it used to be done in Days of Yore. But now even the Times quotes us! It's anarchy! We know, Aaron. The people who make television are not smarter than the people who entirely love and admire the way they make television; the rest of us are bottom-feeding losers who don't deserve your brilliance. Now STFU about it.
So it's a technically competent show -- more than competent, if you're willing, as I mostly am, to overlook the fact that it's basically a clone of Sports Night redone in the visual and narrative style of The West Wing (seriously, did they have to use the same titles font? it's freaky). It remains to be seen it has anything but defensiveness and cynicism at the heart of it, IMO, and that's going to be the defining factor in whether or not I find it watchable in the long run.
Soon, I will watch the Jericho that I have recorded, and there will be NEW VERONICA MARS, WOOT! Don't touch that dial!
